All Through the Night
by dutiesofcare
Summary: The Twelfth Doctor has had a secret he's been keeping for a long time and he finally tells Clara: she talks in her sleep.


**A/N: Happy birthday, Any (clasraoswaId), I hope you enjoy this, love you lots.**

 **Disclaimer: None of the characters belong to me.**

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Clara woke up with the sensation of someone poking her upper arm.

She frowned, trying to ignore the annoying touch, unsuccessfully. The panting came again, leaving her no alternative than to turn towards the opposite side of the bed and come across a very crossed alien being with the traits of an even more crossed Scottish man.

She tried to suppress a yawn, before realizing there was no point. Her whole body was now facing his side of the bed and she was more than ready to succumb herself to unconsciousness again, potentially landing in a dream where there wasn't no aliens and no Scottish men creeping her while she slept.

"Hmm? What is it?" Clara managed to blurt quietly, her voice still hoarse from the sleep running in her veins.

The Doctor left his stare upon her without not even blinking, body buried underneath a mountain of blankets that Clara insisted on pulling over them because _she had been cold_. He sighed, _noticeably_ , to make sure she had heard his sign of protest despite of her closed eyes.

"I can't do this anymore, Clara," he grunted, sounding too much like a spoiled child. Because, Clara would remind him, in most days he was no more than one.

Her groan of annoyance was almost completely muted by the touch with the fabric of the pillow underneath her head. Almost. "Can't do what, sleep?"

He wrinkled his nose, offendedly. "I don't sleep, Clara, you know that."

"Then show some respect for the ones that _do_ ," she argued, pulling the velvet over her head only to have them completely yanked by him.

She would kill him when she was up. He _knew_ that.

He watched as her legs were unconsciously pulled up to her chest, in vain attempts of escaping the chilly air they had just encountered. The Doctor moved to a sitting position. "You're not asleep anymore, so, Clara, I'm begging you to listen to me," he paused briefly, "I can't do this anymore. I really can't."

Her forehead turned into curves of pouting when she realized the tone in his voice. Struggling, she forced her torso up until their eyes almost conquered the same height. Her lips remained half open for a brief moment. "What is it, Doctor? You're scaring me."

Tenderly, he pulled her hands to him. Playing with them, studying the path of each bone underneath her skin. "What I'm about to tell you… I need you to promise me you won't be mad at me."

She tilted her head, fighting the urge to lift her eyebrows as high as the Arc de Triomphe. "I can't do such a thing," she contested, "You're easy to become mad at."

He made a movement with his lips before reluctantly agreeing. "Fair enough. But still, I don't want to have to sleep in the couch for the next month."

Clara made a face, "Do you even have a couch?"

"Somewhere in the TARDIS, I must do," he shuddered, "But that's not the point."

"Indeed," she nodded, "The point is, what have you done, Doctor."

The Doctor let out the longest of breathes, taking her hands to his mouth so they would muff the sound of his vocals. "Alright. Clara… You talk in your sleep."

" _What?_ " she almost shouted, leaving him unsure whether she hadn't heard him or was just shocked.

He tried to hide his face away from her. "You do. Quite a lot, actually."

Clara jerked herself free from his touch and the Doctor immediately raised a pillow in the air between the two of them. Protecting himself from her attacks, she _knew_. Her lips were turned into a curve of jolt, "I do _not_!"

"You do," he repeated. "It's creepy."

She strongly pulled the pillow away from him, leaving him with no means of defense. "Even if I do – which I don't – how is that creepy, Doctor?"

"It's dead silent in the middle of the night and suddenly you raise your head and say something _completely_ out of context! Soon enough I'm going to scare myself to death!"

Clara rolled her eyes until they reached the back of her head. "You're being _dramatic_."

The Doctor scoffed, "I'm being _realistic_."

She crossed her arms against her chest. "Why didn't you ever say anything to me before?! If it bothers you so much."

"Because!" he gesticulated with his hands in the air. "Look how mad you are! I didn't want to upset you!"

"Then why are you telling me now?!" her eyes were as wide as ever. "And FYI, I'm not mad at the fact that I _presumably_ talk in my sleep. I'm just mad at you."

"How I'm going to miss this bed," he muffed underneath his breath, getting a hit of the pillow against his arm from in response. "I'm telling you because I can't do it alone anymore, Clara. I need the world to know how embarrassing you are when you're asleep."

Her jaw fell and formed an _o_ with her mouth. "That's not fair. I'm not conscious, I can't control what I'm doing. You can't hold it against me, Doctor."

" _Pretty embarrassing_ ," he emphasized, grabbing the pillow away from her when she was midway to hit him again.

Clara blew a lock of her hair away from her face. "Define _embarrassing_."

He shook his head vigorous. "I don't want to. I'll get embarrassed. You'll get mad."

" _Madder_ ," she corrected him, raising her index finger in the air. "Why did you tell I talk on my sleep if you refuse to tell me anything further?"

"Because we need to do something about it, Clara. One day you're going to out our tactical location by falling asleep in some foreign planet and screaming something as hideous as _the fish will drown if we leave it in the tank_ right when the aliens predators are passing by."

"You can't just _fix_ it, Doctor," her lips were ironically flat, "It's something I've done ever since a child—"

His pupils dilated and he gasped, " _You knew…_!"

" _No_!" she was quick to reaffirm, "Well, my mum said I did it in my childhood, but I thought I had outgrown that condition."

"You filthy liar…!" he accused her.

This time, she used her own fist to grant him a punch in the shoulder, way slighter than the Doctor made it to be. "Shut up."

He rubbed his hand over the impact area, offering the most dramatic face he had. "Fine. You want me to tell you all the lack of sense you make while you're asleep? I'll tell you."

Clara mouthed him a silenced _thank you_ , trying to contain her grin as she settled in a better position to listen to him – feet messily throw into his lap, legs forming a forty-five angle with her tights, head resting in the gap between her knees. She waited.

"Now, I would just like to remind you that this all just happened to occur under my watch, I am not responsible for anything that you might have said and done during those… _times_ ," he cleared his throat until it was rid of the lump forming in it.

" _Shut up_ and _tell me_ ," she demanded, her northern accent showing more than usual.

"Alright," the Doctor panted, looking directly into his reflection in her eyes as he began, "There was this time, you had been asleep for a while then, so when you tugged deeper into me, I only though you were looking for some body heat. Imagine my confusion when you leaned into my ear and whispered, _I love cupcake_."

Clara started giggling, her chest shaking as she did so. "I _do_ love cupcakes."

"Yes, and for whatever reason you felt obliged to tell me that in the middle of the night. I thought you were giving me hints of what to get you or something."

She tossed her brows together, "Is that why you made me cupcakes that one time for breakfast?"

He nodded. "Yup, but when you didn't acknowledge my effort to satisfy your love for cupcakes, I started to sense that something was… off."

Clara scoffed, "And when did your sensation turn into certainty?"

"A few nights later," he explained. "You had dozed off next to me, so I was just busying myself with some book. Next thing I know, you suddenly sat up and asked me, _three times four equals twelve?_ I barely nodded and you fell down the mattress again and didn't move until the morning."

She held her palm against her lips, "At least my math expertise is still quite good."

"Sure it is," he assented, giving slow massages to her feet, one at a time. "Once, when I was sure you were already dropped dead after some adventure, I brought you closer to me and confessed, _I love you_. And of course my speculation was confirmed when you replied, simply, _yes, dear, I'll deal with the monkeys tomorrow_."

She allowed her tongue to travel the borders of her lips, "It's not easy dealing with the monkeys, dear, you should know that already."

His left eye was lightly higher than his right. "I hope you realize you're making fun of yourself, Clara."

She consented with a smirk. "I just didn't know I was _that_ funny."

"Yes, indeed," he scolded with his voice tone, but she just didn't care. "In fact, you're so funny one night you startled me off by _frantically_ laughing, unable to stop. It was whole two minutes of laughter before you looked at me and said, _sausage_. Your laugh only increased by the hearing of the word previously in your mind – I suppose – and I swear it was about ten minutes until you finally calmed down."

"And you just put up with giggling me for that long?" she pondered, smiling.

"Your laugh is adorably annoying, Clara, I couldn't just nudge you back to unconsciousness," he clarified. "It sounded something like this…"

Taking her by complete surprised, he leaned closer to her and started tickling her body. As expected, Clara began to laugh uncontrollably, feeling herself weak to her bones to the point she fell on her back against the bed, the Doctor right on top of her, still working his fingers up and down the skin of her belly underneath her blouse. She twisted and jerked, desperately trying to free herself from his hold, but failing miserably.

"Stop…!" she begged between gasps, between laughs, "Please stop…!"

At last, he obeyed her commands. Their legs casually intertwined themselves as he pushed the hair away from her face, brushing her temples as gently as he knew how to be. Placing a peck of a kiss right in the path of he just departed thumbs. Leaving his wet lips in contact with her smooth skin for several moments.

"Doctor," she called him quietly, either refusing to change their position. "You woke me up and said _you couldn't do it anymore_. Had I just said something weird?"

The Doctor chuckled. "As a matter of fact, you had, Clara. You were just asking me, _Doctor, have you gotten any mail of mine? I ordered a baby but it still hasn't arrived_. To which I innocently reply, _you ordered a baby? What kind of baby did you order?_ Silly me, of course, as you snapped, _don't be ridiculous, that's not how it works._ "

Clara buried her face in the crook of his neck as he fell back to his side of the bed, taking her along. Her lips were stuck in the beginning of a smile – his, in the ending of one. She uttered softly, "Doctor? Since we're being so honest tonight, I need to tell you a thing."

He rested his jawline against her scalp, allowing the scent of her hair to invade his nose. "Hm? What is it?"

She wrapped her arms around his waistband, nesting perfectly by his side. "You snore."

The Doctor let out a sad excuse of a laugh, pulling her closer to him. "Shut up."

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 **A/N: Any feedback here or on twitter (dutiesofcare) is much appreciat** **ed :)**


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